Exploring the Hidden Web

The subject matter of the planned research project is the communication on the Hidden Web via the Tor Network, a specific media technology offering far-reaching anonymity to its users. The central research questions pursued are (a) what the topics of communication on the Hidden Web are and (b) which media is used for the communication. Another issue building on this is (c) how, under the condition of anonymity, the trust necessary for any communication is built. Regarding these three aspects, the question is to be posed of (d) which differences, common aspects and interfaces there are with freely-accessible media, commonly referred to as the Internet (“Clearnet”). To date, no scientific studies concerning these questions have been conducted, even though communication on the Hidden Web has considerably increased in the recent past.
The empirical foundation of this project is an explorative, qualitative approach: firstly, the Tor Network is examined for its communication content and media used by means of document analysis and content analysis. Secondly, with concern to the way in which trust is established, three communication services are analysed by online-ethnographic methods and conversation analysis. Comparisons between the Clearnet and the Hidden Web are drawn both on the basis of secondary analyses and with the help of existing empirical studies on known Internet media. The results are interpreted social-theoretically following the central question whether evidence can be found for a new phase of Internet usage in which the active-participation logic of the Web 2.0 is complemented or partially replaced by reflected usage oriented on data protection criteria.